Loss
by vampirepenguin
Summary: Naruto is thinking. An activity to which, some would be quick to point out, he is unaccustomed. [oneshot, post Valley of the End, BYOS]


**AN:** There, see? I can write about other characters besides Shikamaru. So there. Nyah. Anyway, this is just an introspective little oneshot about Sasuke and Naruto and different definitions of strength. But I already have a story called "Strength". Dammit. I've been looking at a lot of pretty SasuNaru fanart lately, so this should probably have a subtext warning, although it's preslash if anything.

* * *

It's nighttime and Naruto is thinking.

An activity to which, some would be quick to point out, he is unaccustomed.

But he _is _thinking, and thinking hard.

He's only just out of the hospital after the disastrous clash with the Sound Five and has rather a lot to think about.

Right now, he's thinking about revenge. Because that's what Sasuke was always blithering on about. Being an avenger. Having to kill his brother. Blah, blah, blah. Naruto's heard it about a dozen times before, in varying tones of voice and at differing volumes.

Naruto knows he doesn't understand how Sasuke was feeling when he left. No one but Sasuke knows how Sasuke was feeling, what thoughts were going through his head. He knows he can't really understand, not at the bone-deep level of understanding that people _need_, because, as Shikamaru likes to say, Naruto is Naruto and Sasuke is Sasuke. But he thinks he might have an inkling.

So he's thinking about revenge, and a half-built bridge swathed in mist and ice mirrors and flying senbon.

Back then (it feels like a decade ago), he'd thought Sasuke was dead. And he'd drawn on the Kyuubi for the first time, determined to rip Haku's still-beating heart out of his chest if it was the last thing he did.

Naruto thinks he might understand revenge, at least a little bit.

He wonders if that ripping feeling in his chest that he can remember is what Sasuke feels _all the time_. He wonders if maybe that's why Sasuke's such a bastard.

Then he wonders if maybe Sasuke was just dropped on his head when he was little.

After all, Naruto has the excuse of a psychopathic fox demon living somewhere in his innards. And he managed not to rip Haku's heart out under the demon's sway.

Is that strength?

He's always thought so. Probably a bit strange for a ninja to think like that, but Naruto himself is a bit strange, even for the incredibly diverse crowd of shinobi that Konoha boasts.

Haku told him it wasn't strength to hold back, to not take a life. Haku told him a shinobi had to kill his own heart in order to kill others. In order to be a pawn, a tool.

Of course, Haku had fallen in love with a crazy demon-man on a rampage, so perhaps what Haku said wasn't as accurate as it could have been.

Naruto wraps his arms around his knees and hunches his shoulders up, unconsciously defensive. He's never liked that idea of a shinobi—simple tools, to be used, broken, and thrown away when no longer able to complete their tasks.

He doesn't like to think that he'll have to kill his own heart one day, either.

So what's strength?

Haku said that true strength was found when protecting your friends or family. That, at least, had rung true to Naruto's unpracticed ear.

He remembers Sasuke standing over him, riddled with enough needles to make him look like a mangy, overgrown hedgehog. His inner personality made manifest. His blood on the new-laid concrete of the half-built bridge.

But Sasuke must have thought differently. At least, he must think differently now, or he wouldn't have acted as he had.

It's our ties to other people that make us strong, Iruka-sensei said.

Our bonds are what make us weak, Sasuke said, and tried to sever all bonds and walk into darkness.

Of course, he failed in that. At least partially. Because Naruto's still alive. And so is Sakura-chan (who still loves him), and Kakashi-sensei (who feels so horribly guilty even the less-than-perceptive Naruto can practically taste it).

If Sasuke had really died back then, Naruto would have ripped the world apart.

He's not sure why, but he knows he would have.

So maybe he understands Sasuke now. Maybe a little.

He knows what it's like to lose, after all.

* * *

**Endnotes:** Bleagh. Remind me never to try to write Naruto-POV again. Hyperactive little bugger. I like it much better in Shikamaru's head. Much more comfortable. 


End file.
